Security's taxing times

Guest blogger Fortinet's Paul Judd on why network latency is like going through security at the aiport

Express check ins, premium parking,executive club membership... They'll all get you on the plane that little bit quicker, but everything has to take its turn going through security.

Few would disagree that airport security should be free to take as long as it needs. This unavoidable and necessary delay or ‘latency', is the tax paid for being protected against all manner of threats.

In network security, customers are all too aware of their own latency tax; the price paid for keeping networks protected. Over and above kit and services costs, this extra ‘tax' is priced in direct proportion to seconds, milliseconds, even microseconds lost. This is because the very functions of network security (from stateful or deep inspection firewall, to IPS, AV, VPN, anti-spam and web content filtering) inject the same sort of ‘unavoidable and necessary' delay that exists in every airport.

The bad news for resellers is that you get to be the tax collector. However, not only do you have to go and impose that tax on every customer you sell security to, but you'll never get to see the proceeds for yourself.

Make no mistake, the latency tax is a real monetary sum that subtracts itself from every organisation in every sector. It lives in the clear competitive and commercial implications of running a network that isn't as fast as it should and could be. Take financial trading companies, for example, who build their businesses on being able to transact with laser-fast speed. Speed and responsiveness is increasingly what every business trades upon, but how much can security be allowed to pull performance in the opposite direction?

So, have a close look at the architecture of the security technology you opt for to make sure it will keep your customers' latency tax rates as low as possible, or success will evade you.

Paul Judd (pictured) is regional director for UK, Ireland and South Africa at Fortinet.

Read his thoughts all this week on Views from the Channel.